Syracuse, N.Y. — From the middle of July right through last weekend, they tackled the Greenjackets and Titans, blocked the Stags and North Stars, pounded the Venom and the Red & Black.

They went 12-0, outscored all those other squads from all those other places like Watertown and Mohawk Valley and Plattsburg and Glens Falls and Massena (and even northern New Jersey) by 410 points and earned the No. 1 national ranking among those 138 minor-league football outfits that play summer/fall schedules.

And they are who, exactly?

"We," said team president Khalid Bey, "are the best-kept secret in Central New York."

He was talking about those 60-some athletes and coaches who comprise the Syracuse Strong, which two nights ago at the Valley Sports Complex won their second consecutive Empire Football League title by knocking out the Sussex (N.J.) Stags 36-13 in the EFL's championship bout.

And Bey, a former player at both Corcoran High School and Virginia State University who is now serving his third two-year term in the 4th District seat of the Syracuse Common Council, was not alone in that opinion.

"Our games are a lot of fun," said Dominique Harris, the 6-foot-4, 330-pound anchor of the Syracuse club's defensive line. "There's music, there's concessions, we have a mascot named Sammy Strong. And there is domination. When you're kicking butt, it's real easy to have laughter and good times."

"We can score on you by running it down your throat, or we can put it in the air and score," said Josh Thomas, the Strong's leading receiver and, at 22, the youngest guy on its roster. "So, it's whatever way you want us to get the touchdown."

They're not done. Not for at least another 60 football minutes, anyway. Having out-rushed and out-passed the second-place Stags by a combined 2,156 yards — and the last-place Seaway Valley Venom by, yikes, a combined 4,716 yards — during the EFL's 10-game regular season, this Syracuse bunch is likely bound for Florida.

It will be there, just outside Miami in mid-January, that the national championship will be determined during a tournament featuring four, six or eight teams. If the Strong doesn't receive a bye into the field, it will have the chance to win its way south by surviving next month's Harvest Bowl tournament that will feature a pool of five other squads from New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

Either way, the Strong, comprised mostly of CNY athletes — Harris, for example, graduated from Liverpool High School in 2010 and Thomas is a 2014 graduate of Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central — will flex again.

And proudly.

"It's not really that we're that good and it's not really that we're that unbeatable," said Thomas when asked to explain how his group has averaged 40.9 points per start and has tossed six shutouts in 12 tries. "It's because we play as a family. When you take us on, you're taking on a family rather than just a bunch of players. And it's hard to get past a family."

Consider that, then, the Strong's secret within its other secret. You know, that biggest-secret-in-Central-New-York one.

"We're trying to establish this program in the same way as the Chiefs, the Crunch and the Silver Knights," said Bey. "We see it as a launching pad for the players and coaches to get into the Canadian Football League, the Arena Football League and, obviously, the top dog, the National Football League.

"We know that minor league football hasn't had much demonstrated value. We understand that we have to stabilize this. We realize that people can't buy a product that they don't know exists. So we have to continue to churn it out."